Look, I asked you to relieve me of my ignorance by asking you a question: If Jesus says that marrying after divorce is adultery—and he very clearly did—and divorce is a major sin—which, according to the Ten Commandments, it is—then how is a church that allows divorce not contradicting its central prophet? Instead, of answering my very obvious question, you seem to be doing some sort of Chernoble impersonation. You accuse me of “playing games” of “admitting that * have not idea what [I’m] talking about” and abusrdly insisting that scripture “has never been used that way.” That claim seems a little “monolithic”—no? What about the Catholic Church? Divorce isn’t allowed there, is it? Doesn’t that disprove your assesrtion?
Speaking as a person living in the Deep South, the land where the Jeebus horses run wild and free, I am in complete agreement with Der Trihs. The pressure to strip the objectivity out of any religious course would be unremitting and intense in many, many places in the South, especially the rural South. You can parse it any way you like, but hell, even in Cobb fucking County outside Atlanta, just a couple of years ago they were putting stickers in all the biology texts that said evolution was “just a theory” and that other theories should be considered, too. Any truly objective assessment of the Bible and the Koran (don’t know so much about the Torah, I suspect it sucks too in many respects) will be full of information that the devout will find deeply objectionable. They will object. Deeply.
The post I responded to was basically a more detailed and opinionated snark. When posters start asserting their opinions as facts on subjects like biblical interpretation then I find it hard to resist a little snark in pointing it out.
Can you explain to me why your declaration of how the Bible should be read and interpreted is any more valid than my own or the thousands of others who study it and disagree with you?
No, you are playing games.
In my very first response to you I noted that it was legitimate to
Your response to that was to go haring off after the idea that the religions, themselves, were inconsistent for not narrowly following scripture.
Now, either you actually agree with the point I made, in which case you are continuing this discussion simply because you have not actually read what I posted,
or you actually believe that a discrepancy between verses in scripture and religious practice indicates that “Christianity” (unqualified by “some” or the naming of any specific denominations) believes that a loving God will consign millions of people to hell for failing to believe in Him–a point that is a direct falsehood as it is actually held by a limited number of Christian and atheist biblical literalists. If you believe the latter, you indicate both that you do not know what “Christianity” teaches (substituting the beliefs of a minority for the majority) and that you align yourself with a specific set of beliefs, meaning that my original objection to your earlier post was correct, you are attempting to assert your own beliefs as facts.
You still haven’t answered my question: If Jesus specifically inveighs against divorce but a church sanctions divorce doesn’t that mean that the church is being contradictory in its supposed belief in the teachings of the J-man? That’s not “assert[ing my] own beliefs as fact” that’s asking you to explain what I’m missing. Instead of doing that you keep treating me to repeated self-righteous, not terribly coherent responses that ignore my question and attack my character.
Shorter tomndebb: Believe in Jesus but don’t believe everything he says.
Let’s try looking at the same question another way: If Jesus says that getting married after getting a divorce is the same as committing adultery isn’t he saying that getting married after getting a divorce is the same thing as committing adultery? Isn’t what you’re calling “narrowly following scripture” actually noting its obvious mean? You keep telling me that their are all these other interpretations and that the one that makes sense to me is a minority position. Well, OK, then what are some of these other interpretations?
Attack your character? You are the one who decided to raise the “Orwell” “doublethink” spectre. If you do not want to face assessments of your arguments, then don’t throw out assessments of others’ arguments.
I have not and will not answer your specific question because it is my assertion that any specific question of that sort is irrelevant to the discussion of the OP. I have noted from the beginning that there are inconsistencies between scripture and doctrine. Trying to catch me (or “Christianity”) in such an inconsistency serves no purpose.
Your initial point was that if schools taught about Christian belief, they would be compelled to show that Christianity expressed a particular contradiction–and you then expressed a contradiction (that does not exist in most Christian belief) phrased to express (your claimed contradiction) as simple hypocrisy.
I replied that it would be legitimate to indicate that the scriptures and doctrines of Christianity (or any religion) can be inconsistent.
In point of fact, very few Christian groups preach that only Christians will be saved. In order for you to make the claim you did, you had to align yourself with a particular group of Christian sects that interpret the scriptures regarding salvation in a particular way. So your claim to be making a “pointed” observation was nothing more than a snide shot at Christian belief in which you used the beliefs of a few small groups to make false claims about the overall group. In order to do this, you needed to rely upon the interpretations of specific groups’ views of scripture. Since I am aware that most Christians do not believe that only Christians may be saved and I know that the beliefs of the majority are not dictated by the views of scripture held by you and that smaller group of Christians, my initial point stands: that it is legitimate to point out inconsistencies between some words of scripture and some doctrines, but that it is an error to try to make broad brush (or monolithic) claims about the beliefs of all Christians as they would need to be taught in a survey of religion.
Playing “gotcha” over places where different Christian denominations do or do not adhere to every word of scripture is nothing more than a parlor game in regards to this thread since I stipulated that point from the beginning.
Song Tom learned in Sunday School:
Jesus loves me
This I know
Because certain interpretations of the Bible tell me so.
Since his question was about the varying interpretations of the quoted verses by different branches of Christianity, your accusation that he is treating Christianity monolithically is incomprehensible to me. Is it that odd to say that Christianity as a whole goes by what Jesus said?
It is hardly Biblical literalism to think that something supposedly said by Jesus was said by him - or is there some filter for that also? I don’t know of any atheist who accuses all Christians of being literalists. We are often confused about how you filter truth from fiction, especially in theologically important passages. But that is far different from saying you don’t do this filtering.
Some churches ban divorce, and some accept it. That’s not something atheists made up. Your church in particular seems to take Jesus at his word in this passage. The issue at hand is thus why do some churches act as if Jesus said the exact opposite of what is in the Bible?
I’m sure that someone will give me the theological argument - but the Catholic argument is clearly just as good. BTW, I’d say that all Christian theological arguments are anchored in Scriptures, because how else would they know what God and Jesus say, what they are like, and what they want? I’d challenge you to come up with a purely natural theology that would arrive at Jesus without knowing about him in the beginning.
The branches of Christianity would be inconsistent by definition. I doubt that a teacher would explicitly point this out, but any clever student, even reading about the Reformation, would surely get this immediately.
The real issue is not the existence of the inconsistencies, but the justification for them, and the implications of them for the correctness of the faith. (And in school a teacher should probably say that this is what people believe, and not try to justify it.) How does a befuddled Jewish Atheist like me even begin to understand why the branches of Christianity justify their conclusions, let alone “fight ten decades for the Gods they made.” I at least can see the argument for Christianity as a whole, vs Judaism.
Have a cite about the number of Christian groups who don’t believe salvation is only achieved through belief in Jesus, and the total numbers? Could you show me Papal writing that says Jews, Moslems and Buddhists will be saved? Someone is wasting a lot of money sending out missionaries if what you say is true. All I know is that when the friendly neighborhood Baptists came to my door, and I decided that I’d play the Jewish card, not the atheist card, they didn’t say “cool, nothing we need to do here.” They told me I’d better get saved. The evangelical Presbyterians running my nephew’s wedding said the same thing to his Jewish relatives. (My friend the NJ Presbyterian minister believed no such thing, but his successor probably did.) I can see that you’d like this to be the case, but I’m having trouble believing it, and seeing the fundamental difference between Christianity and other religions if what you say is true.
It’s been my observation braintree that you are doing very well in your debate when tom says he won’t answer your questions, and he starts accusing you of playing word games. While tom often cites other reasons for his failure to reply, he will not knowingly answer any questions that weaken his position. As such his selective silence makes it pretty clear where his weaknesses are.
Thanks for carrying my water while I was out, Voyager. During that time the same thought occurred to me about tomndebb’s assertion that “very few Christian groups preach that only Christians will be saved.” I doubt that’s true. It certainly hasn’t been true for most of history. If it is true, it represents a major historical land shift in Christian thinking. Can tomndebb provide any evidence for this? If he can’t then it’s fair to assume he’s talking out of his hat.
And it is true that I accused tomndebb of doublethink but that’s criticizing his style of thinking in relation to a particular point. That is, I described the quote not the person. This was substantiated by pointing out the inherent and rather obvious inconsistency of claiming that one can have faith in a religion on the one hand while dismissing the validity of its scripture on the other. Holding two irreconciable beliefs as both true is the very essence of doublethink and that’s what we have here.
If I accept that different sects of Christianity have different ways of addressing some of the thornier aspects of the Bible, which was the premise of my question, then I am obviously not treating Christianity as monolithic. What I am saying is that every sect no matter what their take on the Bible has to face the same problem: If they sincerely accept the Bible as true then they are endorsing a god who has far more in common with Saddam Hussein than Ghandi. If they deny the obvious meaning of what it says then they are implicitly undermining their own holy book. For some reason Christians don’t like having this pointed out.
I would like to see a cite for that as well. When I was brought up, Lutheran, I was definitely taught that non-Christians went to hell. And these “non-Christians” included a lot of groups that thought they were Christian.
It would be hard to determine whether most Christians as individuals believe only those who accept Jesus as savior will be saved but my guess is that it would be part of most official doctrines for most major denominations. It would be interesting to see any recent data on this.
I see the major contradictions for those who are Bible literalists but concerning these verses I don’t see the issue for those who clearly don’t take the Bible literally. In Matthew Jesus says, no divorce except for unfaithfulness, a less rigid statement.
Jesus was dealing with the issues of a particular culture in which men wielded power and women were treated as 2nd class citizens. I don’t see a reason for a non literalist to take those verses as literal commands about divorce that were intended to be the end all for every culture in every time. It isn’t a matter of ignoring or denying the meaning of those passages but understanding the details and context. For the non literalists much of the details of day to day life is left to personal communion through the Holy Spirit and the individual. They are asked to "love thy neighbor as thyself’ but in any given situation must try to decide or feel, what love calls for.
In Mark 10 Jesus says 9Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate."
Does that mean if both partners felt it was better and acceptable to God that they go their separate ways it is now okay?
It appears to me you really don’t understand and consider how non literalists deal with issues of interpretation and how your point, concerning them at least, doesn’t hold up.
And it’s interesting to note how that principle applies to other posters as well.
We’ve been sidetracked a bit but I don’t think it would be necessary or even fruitful to critique the details of doctrine as part of the curriculum. Cover the major tenants of belief and allow the students to make their own judgments. I imagine the discussion might come up on it’s own.
The religion course I took in college had a few heated discussions when certain things offended some of the true believers.
You have asserted that you were raised in a more Fundamentalist denomination. That branch of Christianity very definitely does more frequently than other groups hold the belief that only Christians will be saved.
(And I have not asserted that all Christianity has always held that others will be saved–although there are also scriptural passages and statements by Christian writers that support that belief–only that it is inaccurate to claim that Christianity monolithically teaches that belief, today.)
Which is exactly how I have responded to you.
No. What we have here is an effort to ignore specific nuances of distinction in order to portray a situation, using the fallacy of the excluded middle, in order to cast aspersions on a group rather than trying to understand the actual situation.
Your “dismissing the validity of its scripture” line is very nearly a falsehood. It is clearly intended to make a false statement in order to advance an agenda that does not conform to reality.
I have not dismissed scripture at any time. I have, from my first post in our exchange, noted that different groups look at the apparent discrepancies in scripture and that they may be inconsistent (from group to group) in reconciling those discrepancies. I have even noted that it is a legitimate exercise, (in a public school course on religion–the topic of this thread), to point out those discrepancies. Your claim that the scripture demands that unbelievers be damned, for example, are in contrast to the statements of Paul in Romans 2 that those who are outside the law will be justified by their own actions and by statements by Jesus in Matthew 25 that salvation or damnation will be connected with one’s behavior regardless of belief. Given different statements made at different times under different situations, the religious groups will make efforts to either choose one passage over another or to reconcile the meanings of passages. In this they are no different than any organization or institution of humans–none of which are entirely consistent in their beliefs and practices, particularly over time.
So there is no dismissal of scripture in my posts, only an effort on your part to characterize your own interpretation of scripture as the only way in which it must be used.
Tomndebb. You are one of the weaseliest debaters I’ve yet run into. You have failed to answer any of the challenges I have placed to you. You keep complaining that you’ve been misunderstood and that I don’t understand these so-called nuances but refuse to provide an explanation for what these so-called nuances actually are.
I asked you to substantiate that remark, you have utterly failed to do so. And I love the fact that you accuse me of “imposing” them. I didn’t write their GD holy book. I didn’t invent Hell.
You refuse to explain but then complain you’re misunderstood. Well what the Hey do you expect? :smack:
Until you can explain these nuances which you claim exist and actually prove your assertion that most Christian demonimnation reject the idea that Hell is for non-believers it is only reasonable for me and others to assume that you are just some whiney blowhard and dismiss your opinions with contempt. It is high time for you to put up or shut up. No excuses. YOU’RE the one who says these nuances exist and YOU’RE the one who claims that Christian salvation isn’t just for Christians according to most Christians. No more excuses and no more playing victim. Prove it.
I have made no claim to have been misunderstood. My assertion is that you insist on portraying a false picture of how scripture must work and that you do that in an attempt to make a too-broad mischaracterization of what “Christianity” teaches by claiming that your literalist approach is the only valid method of employing scripture. (I do not believe that you misunderstand anything, only that you choose to ignore reality to make your point.)
I have laid out the issue pretty clearly. Scriptures contain a lot of statements. There are generally discrepancies between various statements. Groups who use scripture to express their beliefs need to reconcile those discrepancies (just as any group needs to reconcile statements of principle with choices made to carry out conflicting principles). When reconciling discrepancies, groups will present statements that are, (or, certainly, appear to be), inconsistent from the perspective of persons who do not share the same beliefs. It is legitimate to note that some doctrines appear inconsistent when presenting the beliefs of a group while it is incorrect to assert that one’s own beliefs should dictate how the beliefs of a group are presented.
Lets recap, again.
You falsely claimed that “Christianity” (without idenifying which expression of Christianity)
I pointed out that you had made a false assertion, since some variants of Christianity believe that while others do not share that latter belief. I have also noted that there were discrepancies between various passages of scripture and others and that different Christian groups interpret various passages differently. I even noted that such discrepancies and inconsistencies were a valid point of presentation in a class.
You came back to insist that (your monolithic view of) Christianity had to accept a couple of particular verses of scripture and then said that your belief is that only biblical literalists had the right approach. What your personal beliefs have to do with how a description of the various flavors of Christianity should be presented in a class, I don’t know.
Since then, you have wandered around trying to pick fights over the meaning of different passages of scripture, (irrelevant to a discussion of a presentation of others’ beliefs), reasserting that only your excluded middle approach to scripture is valid, (not merely irrelevant, but contrary to fact, when teaching about others’ beliefs), and making increasingly personal assaults on my effort to stay on topic for this thread. Now, I am sure that you do consider it “weaseling” when another poster does not allow you to hijack a thread to permit you to express your personal rants against one group or another, but your inability to recognize that I am staying on topic while you are attempting to launch an error filled rant against people with whom you appear to disagree is not my problem.
The Roman Catholic Church does not hold that only Christians are saved.
The Orthodox Church does not hold that only Christians are saved.
The Anglican Communion does not hold that only Christians are saved.
The Lutheran communions are more divided on the topic, with some groups who associate with Fundamentalist groups holding that only those who believe in Jesus may be saved while most of the ELCA does not teach that.
The Presbyterians appear to be divided on the topic, with, again, more Fundamentalist-oriented groups accepting the damnation of those who do not believe while the official position is that the decision of who will be saved and damned “rest with God.”
The Society of Friends does not believe non-believers are damned.
I even know Baptists who do not thaink that non-believers are damed, (although that number is much smaller than in the previous groups).
I’ve seen “true believers” freak out in college Science classes! Not only did Evolution throw them for a loop, but one young woman’s brain practically went into melt-down during a Linguistics class (“That can’t be right! The Bible tells us exactly how different languages formed. It’s all right there in the Tower of Babel story!”).